Ruthless Empire: A Dark Mafia Collection

So when David came home and called my name through my bedroom door, I almost didn’t answer. I didn’t want to face him, either. I felt like he’d gone to all this trouble because he didn’t want me to be with Marco. I’d always believed that my brother had my best interests at heart, and maybe he still did, but his part in the destruction of my love life hurt.

He kept insisting I get decent and come out to the kitchen to talk to him, and eventually I relented. I just wanted to get this conversation over with, so he’d leave me to wallow on my own.

“How you doing?” he asked me.

“The love of my life is likely going to prison because of me. How do you think I’m doing?” I spat back, wiping the wetness away as it fell endlessly down my cheeks. I’d made the mistake of glancing into our hallway mirror. I’d been crying so much that my face looked like raw hamburger.

“He’s not going to the big house because of what you did. He’s going because of what he did. It’s his own fault, Kelly. Don’t take that on yourself.”

“But I played my part, didn’t I? The part you asked me to play.”

“You did the right thing is what you did. Getting away from that bastard was the right thing,” he said, but it didn’t feel like the right thing at all. It felt wrong. My whole life felt wrong. “I brought you a Toblerone.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head, waving it off. A Swiss candy bar wasn’t going to cut the mustard this time. I couldn’t think of anything that would.

“I have some good news,” he said, his lips quirking upward. Since I was willing to listen to anything that might make me feel better, I offered him a “bring it on” gesture, even if it was pretty lackluster. His grin broadened. “I just received a commendation.”

I stared at him. “You did?”

“Yeah,” the pitch of his voice rising with his excitement. “My lieutenant said it’s for getting access to an inside man, one that may be the linchpin into bringing down the rest of them. That could help take a massive chunk of crime out of this city. Busting open this whole money laundering scheme was enough to put me over the top.”

I blinked, trying to take what he’d just said in. “The case against Marco got you a commendation?” I repeated, just to make sure I’d heard him correctly.

“Yeah. So I appreciate you getting onboard to help me.”

Is that what I’d done? Helped my brother succeed in his professional life at the cost of my personal one? Suddenly, there didn’t seem to be enough air in the room. I snatched my coat from its hook by the door, grabbed my purse, and leaving David grinning happily to himself at the kitchen table, closed the door behind me.

As I stumbled a little unsteadily down the sidewalk, I knew only one thing. I needed to get away, to put some distance between myself and my brother. So I did. I walked. I walked out of the apartment complex, past the crappy neighborhood that surrounded it, and toward the heart of Philly.

I continued

on and on, passing parks and bus stops, going along the pier until the Delaware filled the entire horizon. Then, I peered behind me, scrutinizing the city skyline. My tears dried. I’d finally managed to stop crying, but it wasn’t because I felt better.

It was because I felt numb.

There amongst those skyscrapers lay both Organic Eats and the cottage suite Marco had rented for the past couple of weeks, places where I’d experienced the brightest and most fulfilling moments of my life. But now that this peculiar numbness had overwhelmed me, I didn’t remember those times as if they belonged to me.

Instead, it felt as if I was watching a movie of someone else’s life.

As I stood at a corner, a bus pulled into the bus stop, and I hopped on, riding it to within a few blocks of the Dwight D, the hotel the suite was attached to. Once I arrived, I stood outside the door of the detached cottage, staring at it. Marco had made certain I had a keycard to it, but after everything that had transpired, I didn’t know if it would still work.

When it did, I slipped inside.

My feet took me straight to the bed I’d so recently shared with Marco, the bed where we’d made love, the bed where he’d told me he loved me. But again, those things felt like they’d happened to a different Kelly Carr, a Kelly who wasn’t me. They didn’t have the impact I might’ve expected.

I got into the bed as if it were just another night. As if Marco might be home any minute, or as if he were in the next room, just out of sight. I laid back on the pillows then turned toward his side of the bed, realizing that his pillow still smelled like him, that fresh mix of sandalwood and him. Clutching it against my body as if it were him, I nuzzled my face deeply into it, breathing it in.

Then, without any difficulty at all, I fell asleep.

I woke the next morning, finding that the numbness remained. I went on living there, going through the motions. I showered, watched television, stared blankly at the wall, but I didn’t feel much.

When I began to feel hungry, I searched the fridge in the kitchenette, delighted to find it had been partially stocked. Probably by Marco’s buddy Vinnie. I was thankful. It meant I didn’t have to burst the bubble I’d created around myself.

Six days after my life had imploded, I jerked awake in the dead of night from a bad dream. Sweating and panicked, I reached for Marco, but he wasn’t there. The realization brought everything back to me, all of it. Everything I’d somehow put off experiencing hit me like a sledgehammer and I burst into sobs that wracked my entire body.

After they subsided a bit, I got up to get a drink of water. All the things I’d been able to ignore or even forget for the past several days came back to me with a vengeance. Did my mom need more pain pills? Had my absence caused her to miss any important doctor’s appointments? Were my parents paying their bills? Had my brother wondered where I’d gone?

Was Marco okay? Where was he? Still at the police station or somewhere else now? Would his case go to trial? Would he be taken to some dangerous maximum-security prison where he might be hurt or killed?